


ephemera

by AwayLaughing



Category: Naruto
Genre: Developing Relationship, Established Relationship, F/M, Late Night Conversations, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-16
Updated: 2016-08-16
Packaged: 2018-08-09 06:13:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7789780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AwayLaughing/pseuds/AwayLaughing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ino and Neji have a late night heart to heart about love and life choices.</p><p> </p><p>  <em>How Shikamaru – emotionally reclusive, verbally reticent, lazily evasive Shikamaru – was the one in a steady seemingly healthy relationship was just beyond her.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	ephemera

Ino’s favourite spot in Konoha was...not. It was deep in Shikamaru’s clan lands, far enough away that if you had your back to the city, the lights might as well not be there. The stars still weren’t as bright as when you were seated in some empty plain or resting on a ledge on some mountain, but those places weren’t home, either.

 

Life, she’d learned along the way, was mostly just trading imperfect things for a less imperfect thing and settling for it. Ino had yet to fully conquer that settling, bit.

 

“ _Sorry I ain’t perfect, princess!”_

 

Wincing, Ino tried to push the memory of the fight – the latest fight she should say – and in doing so almost missed the familiar chakra just ahead. In _her_ stop. No, their spot. Her team used to camp out here as little kids, before they were genin and when life was so much easier. No gaping holes in their lives and hearts, no messy adult lives of their own to worry about.

 

For a very brief, admittedly deeply irrational, all those thoughts converged to make her feel like this smooth, deep well of chakra was intruding on all that history. Which, okay, she’d felt that away about this particular person a lot lately, which was ridiculous because it wasn’t like Team 10 had some sort of celibacy pact going on.

 

But honestly. How Shikamaru – emotionally reclusive, verbally reticent, lazily evasive Shikamaru – was the one in a steady seemingly healthy relationship was just beyond her. The fact it was with Hyūga Neji, the singularly most emotionally unavailable person they knew who wasn’t a criminal, was just the salty icing on the oozing wound that was that cake.

 

No, she wasn’t jealous. Shut up.

 

“Heya Neji,” she said, finishing entering the clearing. There was no way he hadn’t known she was there, Hyūgas were good sensors even without the Byakugan, generally, if they took the time to hone it at all. She couldn’t imagine why you wouldn’t, an unhoned sensing skill was like someone scrapping sandpaper of your nerves at random moments with no pattern of concern for what you were doing.

 

“Ino,” he said. He was seated on the flat rock she used to play tic tac toe with the boys on, cross legged and looking over the tree tops. Nara lands had tonnes of hills – her father used to joke they liked valleys so much Shodaime made some just to get them to stay – and this one was the second highest before it edged into the mountains proper. Nara lands were also _big_. “How are you?”

 

“I’m good,” she said, still slightly off balance. Alone time with Neji had been historically disastrous. He tolerated her fine in a group with lots of people between them, but they couldn’t seem to have a one on one conversation before he got snippy and she got defensive. He had a well honed sense for what to say at exactly the right time to draw blood. He’d have made her childhood spats with Sakura much more exciting. “You?”

 

“I am well,” he said, which might as well be the same as a wall saying _I’m made of brick._ Even if it was a shoddy knock off wall made by charlatans, it wasn’t going to tell you otherwise now was it?

 

“Good,” she said, looking around and wondering if there was any way to gracefully exit the scene. Outside of Shikamaru showing up in some fucked sex outfit, she couldn’t see one happening. Hoped to any and all gods it wouldn’t actually. There were things a girl did not need to know about her dearest friend and what he did with his _whatever_ Neji was supposed to be. “So uh, what brings you out here?”

 

Neji finally looked at her, eyes paler in the moonlight than even in the sun. It wasn’t a full moon, but it was close and it was a very clear night besides, she couldn’t help but feel self conscious. The world had been _very_ kind to Hinata and Neji, in so far as facial planes and enviable hair went. She would take a hard pass on their family members. And the creepy face veins. Bleh. “I was taking a walk,” he said, which again meant nothing. “Are you sure you’re well?”

 

“Yes,” she said, and then, with his unyielding gaze and the merciless blue light pounding down on them, deflated. “No. I don’t know. I will be.”

 

“Mm,” Neji said. “Would you like to sit?”

 

“Oh sure, why not,” she said, and flopped down. “Not like this hasn’t been a weird enough night so far.” Neji didn’t say anything, because too much interest was blasphemous, but did have an air of attention to him. Which was nice. “I’ve been at Intel a year now, at a top level and I’m finding it’s not...fitting...like it should and I don’t know what _would_ fit because I know it’s not the hospital. And I got in a fight with Kiba and I missed dinner with Chōji and now he’s mad at me and I just...” she took a deep breath. “Yeah.”

 

“Yeah,” Neji said making her look over to him. “I cannot imagine I’m the one you wanted to discuss this with.”

 

“Well my plan was to pour my heart out to the stars, a human wall works too,” she joked, and to her astonishment got a tiny lip twitch of amusement. “Wow, that line actually worked. I didn't think I could make you smile about anything.”

 

“I have a set amount per person per year,” he said flatly, “I have to ration them out.”

 

“Must make your relationship with Shikamaru exciting,” she said, and if she’d been surprised by the first smile, the deeper, more genuine one _that_ got would be equal to the surprise one felt when a clown appeared from nowhere and stabbed your foot with a comically sized naginata.

 

“There may be a pay scale,” he said and she blinked at him.

 

“Wow,” she said finally. “Okay then. Gotta admit, very jealous right now.”

 

“You want to be higher on the pay scale?” he asked, eyebrow arched, she gave a tiny huff of laughter.

 

“I won’t bet on that horse,” she said. “No I just...” wanted someone to smile like that about her. To be able to smile like that about someone. “Nothing. Forget I said anything.”

 

She doubted he would, but he didn’t say anything. Which made sense, she doubted he was very good about calm, comforting conversations about his _own_ relationship. Given his apparent disinterest toward her, and his open and long standing animosity with Kiba, this was no doubt far, far out of his comfort zone. “Guess I found the thing to trip up Hyūga Neji, super jōnin.”

 

“Any interpersonal relationship would have done it,” he said. “I specialize in sibling rivalry and unhealthy parental dynamics.”

 

She laughed, propping herself up and seeing he was still looking at her. “Why are you up here, really?” she asked. He cocked his head.

 

“I don’t sleep well,” he said bluntly. “Haven’t as long as I can remember. I try not to stay in bed when I’m too restless, it’s amazing how he can sleep through an unparalleled storm, but heaven forbid I twitch in any way that might mean discomfort.”

 

Ino smiled. “Yeah, he did that to us during missions. Could magically be dead asleep if a chore popped up, but I’m nervous? Suddenly he had to use the bathroom and oh look, no he’s too awake to sleep.” She smiled a little wider at the memory. “And he was so useless at it anyway. Sitting in silence was the best option, if I started talking he started yawning again.”

 

Neji chuckled very softly, and it was a nice sound. His angles were still a little sharp in the cold light, and his eyes were still over-bright and uncomfortably perceptive given he didn’t have pupils, but he was easily one of the most attractive people she knew. Somehow the warm little noise and that secret smile from earlier were what defined that beauty, though. Once she’d have ignored those, and thus never earned them, and would have found the easy to spot austerity of his features to be what was important.

 

Funny, then, that Shikamaru, who’d _hated_ her childhood crush on Sasuke – founded on the same principals – had ended up with Neji, and Ino had ended up with Kiba. Was trying to, at least.

 

Warm, amazing Kiba who was slightly rough around the edges but surprisingly gentle at all the right times. Kiba who played with random kids and saved cats from trees – despite being an Inuzuka. Who wasn’t marble and onyx but amber and beautifully worked wood. Who loved her and had never made her work for it or made it seem like she owed anything in return.

They _did_ say girls married their fathers, as it were.

 

“It’s funny, isn’t it?” she asked. “I always had my life planned out. I never thought I’d be a clan head by 18 or that Intel wouldn’t be right.” That she could be so bad at relationships that weren’t with her team. “Have you ever felt like this?”

 

For a moment, Neji was silent. “As long as I can remember,” Neji said finally, “there was an undercurrent to my interactions with older shinobi. More than once I overheard people saying I’d be dead by twenty, and that if I was lucky. When I was young it seemed like everyone thought that, so I just focused on now. Be better now than I was a second before. I didn’t let myself dream about anything bigger than that. It was just too daunting. No one thought I would make it, and more importantly many didn't want me to at all.”

 

That- Ino blinked. “You, daunted?”

 

“I hide it well, I know,” he said. “But as you know doubt have learned, showing weakness was not wise when I was a child.” And it showed, she thought, thinking of the maelstrom that had hidden behind Neji’s stoic facade since at least their genin days. No doubt it was still there, hopefully it was just less angry now. Passion could – should – be beautiful. “So yes, I have felt like you. When I finally came off the refugee camps, I was adrift. Being a new jōnin is easy, they give you missions to get better until people start requesting you or you find your niche. War’s easier, everyone gets a niche and a job. And then there I was, 21 and with what seemed to me a wide open future I’d never once considered as a possibility.”

 

“How did you decide?” she asked. “When so many people must have wanted different things.”

 

Neji shrugged. “I’m at least used to disappointing people,” he said, another tiny smile at his lips. No, smirk. “Depending on the person, I even enjoy it.”

 

Ino laughed a tiny bit, but the pit in her stomach ruined it. “I’ve disappointed so many people,” she said. “And I hate it every time. They don’t want bad things for me, they don’t want anything _from_ me and still,” her breath caught. “I haven’t managed to get it right, yet.”

 

“It will never be right,” he said, bluntly as was usual. “Something will always be off, even if it’s just something small and niggling. People who love you want you to be happy, though. Or so I’m told.”

 

“You have loved ones,” she chided gently. Neji shrugged again.

 

“Now,” he said. “You have much more practice, though. If it’s not working, though, don’t stay at Intel.”

 

“Or don’t stay with Kiba?” she asked.

 

“You didn’t say Kiba didn’t fit right,” he said. “You did say so about Intel, and job slots are much easier to fill than partner slots. Once you’re a jōnin you’re always a jōnin. Relationships have to be renegotiated every time. All you said about yours was there was a fight.”

 

“Do you and Shikamaru fight?” she asked, because Shikamaru never let on if something was wrong at home. Never had.

 

“Oh never,” Neji said, tone so flat she knew it was sarcasm. “There is no way our basic personalities ever lead to conflict, especially not with outside factors weighing in.”

 

“Asshole,” she muttered, picking at the grass. “You know what I meant.”

 

“I do,” he said. “But one does have to be true to one’s self.” It was her turn for tiny smiles, it seemed. Would wonders ever cease? “However, to answer your actual though sub-textual question, yes we fight and it can be very bad. We don’t have complimentary reactions to interpersonal conflict and it can get messy fast. Making up has to be a conscious effort or it lasts for weeks.” Ino looked up, curious. He gave her a wry look. “There are no small fights,” he said, “we group them all together.”

 

“Like the straw that broke the camels back,” she said. “Kiba and I fight all the time, it seems.”

 

“You and Kiba are not myself and Shikamaru,” was the curt reply. “Indeed, one could argue for hugely divergent personality traits amongst us.”

 

“Only could?” she asked.

 

“Mm,” Neji said, shifting slightly from his lotus position so his feet touched soles. Ino just lay down again, tired of propping herself up. “But either way, our relationship is not ours. Among other things, we’ve been doing this longer.”

 

“No kidding,” she said. “Do you know how weird that was? Is?”

 

Neji nodded once. “I do,” he said. “Certainly, my tenuous plans were not to be in a lengthy monogamous relationship with Nara Shikamaru.”

 

Ino really did laugh at that, remembering their first official meeting. “Not after that first meeting,” she agreed, “or anything after, probably. How _did_ it happen?” She knew the general sense of things, of course. Neji had run a refugee camp, Shikamaru had been the general ambassador for the Konoha supported camps vs the world, and familiarity had failed to breed contempt. The actual reasons were...still beyond her.

 

Not that she thought either were unlovable, or anything. Gods no. Shikamaru was her one of her best, oldest friends. She’d lived more of her life with him and Chōji than anyone, had more life experiences in common with him than anybody. Of course he deserved love, he deserved so very much of it, and so much beyond it he just...wasn’t easy to give it to. Shikamaru didn’t know how to accept help from other people, didn’t know how to let himself be vulnerable and honest without a lot of prompting and pushing and pulling.

 

She really could not see Neji bullying Shikamaru into telling him about his day. But then again, she’d never really mastered getting a full awake, completely sober Shikamaru to open up to her. So maybe Neji knew something about it all she didn’t As if that didn’t just add more sting to this whole affair.

 

“We get along,” was the frankly useless reply. “Is there really anything more to it, other than work?”

 

Work. _Love is hard_ , Yoshino had said to her once. Ino couldn’t recall the exact reason for the words, except she was pretty certain Shikaku-ji had been having his troubles, at the time. “No,” she admitted. “There’s really not.” Silence fell between them again, and finally she asked a question she’d always wanted to. “Why don’t we get along?”

 

“You’re annoying.”

 

 _Ouch_. “Hey!” she said, “you’re an ass, that’s worse!”

 

“Oh certainly,” he said. “And when you’re not annoying, you’re upset.”

 

“Well if I’m not being annoying, what do you care?” she asked, trying hard not to pout up at the stars. “Shouldn’t you be glad I’ve just shut up?”

 

“If I disliked you, I suppose so. But I don’t.”

 

It took her a moment to piece all that together. “So...we don’t get along because you want me to be happy, but when I’m happy I’m annoying?”

 

“Correct,” he said. “And because I’m an asshole.”

 

“Only when you’re awake,” she said, smiling when he gave another chuckle. Above them, the stars had sharpened into view as the chill of deep night finally started to completely win over the lingering heat of day. She shivered slightly, and almost jumped when cool fingers brushed her shoulder. She hadn’t realized how close they were.

 

“Go home, Ino,” he said, “you’re doing yourself no favours staying here. You’re just cold.”

 

“And you?” she asked, even as she sat up. He just shrugged, and she got the feeling that the heart to heart was over and she’d best remove herself or stay very very quiet when she invariably did get cold. “Well, goodnight then,” she said. “Try and get some sleep, ne?”

 

“Ng,” was all he said, and she wasn’t even certain he’d heard her. Eyes fixed on something in the far, far distance.

 

* * *

 

 

Ino had stayed in the house she and her father shared her whole life, though it had been hard. Sakura had come to live with her, and then Sakura left and some other girls came, and now it was just her again. It wasn’t so hard now, the memory of her dad wasn’t quiet as painful as it used to be. Not always, anyway.

 

As she approached the shop – she needed to remember to update the ikebana in the windows. They were entering fall and she’d need quite a few things to change into. Something for her and Shikamaru’s birthdays, something for Naruto, something for Asuma-sensei...her thoughts came to a halting stop when she realized someone was seated at the bottom of the steps up to the apartment above.

 

“Akamaru?” she asked, confused by the giant white dog’s presence before she realized he was sprawled over his likewise sleeping master. “Kiba?!”

 

“Ino?” he jerked awake, “Ino!” Akamaru grumbled as Kiba jerked to his feet. “I looked fucking everywhere for you. Twice!”

 

“I...I was at Shikamaru’s,” she said, and realized he’d probably looked there. “Well, a place I used to go. On the clan lands.”

 

“Oh,” Kiba said, shoving his hands in his pockets. “What time is it, anyway?”

 

“Twoish?” she guessed and he wrinkled his nose.

 

“Well, maybe you don’t, princess, but I need my beauty sleep,” he said, making her duck to hide a grin. “You gonna let me up, or do I have to grovel?”

 

“Kiba...” she shuffled. “Oh I’m sorry Kiba,” she said finally, throwing himself into those broad arms. He caught her, barely, and she buried her face in his shoulder. He smelled, admittedly, like dog, but also like _Kiba_ beyond that, and he’d been sleeping there so long that he was slightly chilled, but not cold. “My head’s just been all turned around and I took it out on you,” she admitted. “Forgive me?”

 

“Done and done,” he said, voice rumbling against her chest and in her ear. “Wanna talk?”

 

“I," she said, because words died in her throat. He kissed her temples.

 

"In the morning, then."

 

Ino sighed, pressing into him and wondering if he wasn't the mind reader. "Alright. I'll make breakfast."

 

“Er,” Kiba said, and she pulled away to smack his shoulder.

 

“I’ve gotten better!”

 

“But not good!”

 

Ino wagged her finger at his face. “Careful you,” she said, starting up the stairs. “I don’t have to let you in you know.”

 

“But you’re gonna,” he said, rougish grin making his eyes gleam. “And _I’ll_ make breakfast while you talk, how ‘bout?”

 

“Deal,” she said, unsealing her door. Waiting for Akamaru to lumber in – and immediately slump into the corner between her couch and window where his guest-bed was – she closed and resealed it. “Kiba...” she said before even turning, and almost jumping to find he was right there at her elbow.

 

“Not tonight, kay?” Kiba said, gently hooking her chin and pecking her on the nose. “Shit’s easier in the daylight.”

 

Briefly, Neji’s calmness in the moonlight came to mind, and she smiled slightly. “Of course,” she said. _Not everything_ , she didn’t say.


End file.
